French · Spleen and Ideal

Causerie

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1
You are a lovely autumn sky, clear and rose!
Vousyouvous · pronoun, second-person, plural (formal singular)subject of ciel
êtesareêtre · auxiliary verb, present, indicative, second-person, pluralcopula linking to ciel
unaun · determiner, masculine, singulardeterminer of ciel
beaulovelybeau · adjective, masculine, singularmodifies ciel
cielskyciel · noun, masculine, singularpredicate of êtes
d'ofde · prepositionpreposition marking automne
automneautumnautomne · noun, masculine, singularmodifies ciel
clairclearclair · adjective, masculine, singularmodifies ciel
etandet · conjunctionlinks the coordination
roseroserose · adjective, masculine, singularcoordinated with clair
GrammarThe distancing «vous» «vous» is the formal 'you', used here for a single woman the poet desires — not intimacy but a held distance. The poem will slip between this cool «vous» and a sudden «tu» («Ta main», stanza two) and back again, tracking how the lover is drawn close and then pushed away. «un beau ciel d'automne» = 'a beautiful autumn sky': beautiful, but already turning toward its end.
2
But the sadness in me rises like the sea,
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and leaves, as it ebbs back, on my sullen lip
Grammar«en» + present participle (the gerund) «en refluant» = 'while ebbing, as it flows back out'. «en» + a present participle is the French gerund, naming the manner or moment of an action; «refluer» = 'to ebb, to flow back' (the tide going out). So the sadness rises like the sea (line 2) and, draining away again, leaves its bitter residue behind. «morose» = 'sullen, gloomy'.
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the smarting memory of its bitter slime.
Word«cuisant» and «limon» «cuisant» (from «cuire», 'to cook, to burn') = 'stinging, smarting, raw' — the kind of pain that burns. «le limon» is the silt or slimy mud a tide leaves on the shore. The image completes the sea-metaphor: the ebb of sadness deposits, on the poet's lip, a memory that burns like the bitter mud left by retreating water.
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— Your hand slides in vain over my swooning breast;
GrammarTwo pronominal verbs: «se glisser», «se pâmer» Both verbs are pronominal, the «se» turning the action back on the subject. «se glisser» = 'to slip, to slide oneself' (the hand glides of its own accord); «se pâmer» = 'to swoon, to faint with feeling'. The dash and the sudden «Ta» ('your', familiar «tu») break the formal «vous» of the first quatrain — the woman has moved close, and her hand caresses a breast that swoons even as the caress is «en vain», 'in vain'.
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what it seeks, dear, is a ravaged place
Wordsaccager «saccager» = 'to ransack, to lay waste, to plunder' — the sacking of a city. «un lieu saccagé» = 'a plundered, ravaged place'. The hand searches the poet's chest for a heart and finds only ruins, looted ground; the next two lines name who did the looting.
7
by the claw and the savage tooth of woman.
8
Seek my heart no longer; the beasts have eaten it.
Grammar«ne… plus» + the return to «vous» «ne… plus» = 'no longer, not anymore'; «ne cherchez plus» = 'seek no more'. Note the swerve: after the intimate «Ta main» the poet snaps back to the formal imperative «cherchez» (the «vous» form), pushing her away again. «les bêtes» (the beasts of the previous line, woman's claw and tooth) «l'ont mangé» = 'have eaten it' — the heart is already devoured.
9
My heart is a palace withered by the mob;
Word«flétrir» and «la cohue» «flétrir» = 'to wither, to wilt' (a flower) and, figuratively, 'to defile, to dishonour'. «la cohue» = 'the crowd, the rabble, the crush'. The heart is a once-grand palace that a trampling mob has both worn out and disgraced — the public, profaned space the rest of the tercet describes.
10
There they get drunk, kill each other, tear at each other's hair!
GrammarImpersonal «on» + «y» + reflexive/reciprocal verbs «on» is the indefinite 'one / people / they', and «y» = 'there' (in the palace-heart). Each verb is pronominal: «se soûler» = 'to get drunk', «se tuer» = 'to kill oneself / one another', «se prendre aux cheveux» = an idiom, literally 'to take one another by the hair', i.e. 'to come to blows, to brawl'. The tripled «on s'y…» piles up the chaos in the ruined palace.
11
— A perfume floats around your bare throat!...
Word«gorge» — throat, but also breast «la gorge» literally means 'throat', but in older and poetic French it commonly denotes a woman's bosom or breast. «votre gorge nue» = 'your bare throat / bare breast'. The dash again cuts the poet off from his own despair — mid-ruin, his attention drifts back to the woman's perfumed flesh, and «votre» restores the distancing «vous».
12
O Beauty, harsh scourge of souls, you will it so!
Word«fléau» — flail, then scourge «un fléau» is first the flail used to thresh grain, and from there 'a scourge, a plague, a calamity'. «dur fléau des âmes» = 'harsh scourge of souls'. The poet now turns from the woman to address «Beauté» itself, personified and capitalized — and the «tu» here is no longer the lover but Beauty, sovereign and cruel: «tu le veux» = 'you will it', you want it this way.
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With your eyes of fire, blazing like festivals,
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burn to ash these scraps the beasts have spared!
GrammarImperative «calcine» + past-participle agreement and inversion «calcine» is the imperative of «calciner», 'to burn to ash, to char', commanding Beauty to finish what the beasts began. «les lambeaux» = 'shreds, tatters' — the scraps of the heart left over. In the relative clause «qu'ont épargnés les bêtes», the subject «les bêtes» is inverted after the verb, and the participle «épargnés» takes a plural -s agreeing with the preceding object «qu'» (= «ces lambeaux»): 'these scraps that the beasts have spared'.

The particulars

The text: Les Fleurs du mal, Charles Baudelaire. Spleen and Ideal.
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